Cumple de Luis

My friend Luis just had his 24th birthday this past weekend.  To celebrate, I spent the day with him, his friends and his family on Sunday, where we had a "traditional" Chilean birthday.  He lives in Nunoa, an area to the south of me which is almost exclusively populated by natives.  Getting there from my apartment is like watching a reverse-time video of the development of Santiago.  The buildings slowly get smaller, and their walls become a rougher concrete.  The store signs go from illuminated metal and plastic to painted names and logos directly upon the wall.  The streets slowly shrink in size, and the sidewalks develop more and more cracks.

I got over to his house at about 3:00 PM.  It's the final house on a little dead-end street, across from a small restaurant and grocery store.  The outside gate lets you into their driveway, where there is a mini-RV trailer parked right by the main door.  Once inside the house, you walk through the main entrance, by the TV and couches, and then by the kitchen table to the outdoor patio.  On the patio, Luis and his friends were already hanging out, drinking Escudo beer.  His father and two uncles were also sitting out there, while the mother and aunts were at work in the kitchen.  The music was initially a Chilean pop/rock radio station, but after a while Luis hooked his computer up to the stereo and American gangster rap took over the soundwaves.

We talked soccer for a while (Real Madrid - FC Barca, U de Chile - Liga) until dinner was almost ready.  We (the next generation) were sent by the women to pick up some bread for dinner, so we hopped into the family truck and started hunting.  Most places in Santiago are shut down on Sundays, especially more rural spots, so we had to drive for a while to another part of the city which was a bit larger, but further south and still unknown to me.  "Only Spanish here man."  Luis told me as we were getting out of the truck; his tone a bit more serious than before.  He doesn't need to say any more.  I kept my sunglasses on and my mouth shut as we entered a little mom and pop convenience store and grabbed bread for the table.  The old lady behind the counter didn't say a word to us the entire time, except for the final price after the bread was weighed on a scale.   

Once back at the house, it was time for lunch.  We all shuffled into the dining room on the other side of the patio, and took seats.  The table was comprised of 2 smaller tables, one of which was about 4 inches shorter than the other.  The parents all sat at the larger table, while the next generation took the smaller table.  Ironically, everybody at the small table was bigger or taller than the people at the large table, but there was no way I was bringing this point up to the group.

Lunch itself was a leg of chicken, a strip or two of beef, choripan (chorizo sausage in an italian bread bun), a bean/onion salad (porotos granados), a mayonnaise-less coleslaw, and a normal salad with a balsamic vinagrette-like dressing.  It was the best meal I've had down here, hands down.  Interestingly, nobody drank alcohol with the meal.  Even though everybody was drinking beer or pisco (a grape liquor) beforehand, during the meal they only had sprite or water.  Also, nobody here puts their bread roll on their plate of food.  Everybody just sets it on the tablecloth, and breaks off pieces of it as they work through their meal.  In a strange way, it makes sense.  Why bother taking up space on your plate? Your bread can just rest on a clean tablecloth, simultaneously not really dirtying the tablecloth, and also not absorbing whatever's left on your plate.

After lunch, the women cleaned up the table while the men all went into the back warehouse to smoke cigarettes (did I participate?  You'll never know).  In the middle of the space was a thick rope hanging from the rafters, much like your generic high school gymnasium rope.  The rope ran about 25 feet to the ceiling, and it was just hanging there, taunting us as we stood around.  Finally the birthday boy, Luis, looks at me and says "escalas?".  I couldn't resist.  After I slapped the rafters, I got a few cheers from the food-sedated audience.  A few others climbed it after, but most called it off a couple feet from the top.

I ended up climbing it one more time, only this time when I came down I allowed my hands and ankles to slide a little bit on the rope while I was coming down.  As a result of this decision, I have a couple nice burn scabs on my ankles and blisters on my hand.  Fortunately they had plenty of beer medicine on hand to alleviate the injuries.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around the patio, drinking beer and trading jokes.  Some of mine translated better than others, but it was a good time.  Jokes are actually a good way of practicing a language, because it forces one to think about the double entendres and where the force of the punchline comes from.  The telling of a joke requires some planning when translating across languages.

Feliz Cumple, Luis.